Break Away
by ClinicalCriminal
Summary: Lydia was her name? He was sure that her name was Greek he smiled and nodded to himself. This wasn’t going to be no regular haunting. Movie.
1. Chapter 1

**Break Away**

**Disclaimer: **I don't own any characters mentioned or involved in this story. This is a fictional piece of work. In no way do I make any money or a profit of sorts from using these characters.

**Authors Note:** This piece struck me while I was in the bath musing on what might have happened if Beetlejuice had met Lydia before he'd met the Maitlands, I've upped Lydia's age to 18 just in case I want to take things a little

Further. Movie verse.

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**Chapter One:** _Time Well Spent_

Comfort over practicality had always been an issue when it came to the several things that were housed in Beetlejuice's hidden lair. The beaten old armchair that sat in the middle of his living room had it's own purpose. He'd sit there, from time to time and read the newspaper occasionally, usually when he had nothing to do, no mortals to scare, no Neitherworld gal to seduce, nada.

He'd sigh, try to find a comfortable position for thinking, maybe drink several bottles of cheap rum but usually he ended up staring into space or stalking whichever insect that had found the guts to crawl around his lair. He was a bum, a good for nothing poltergeist who liked nothing better than annoying the hell out of Juno, his ex friend and colleague and now his care worker and terrorising the living.

Of course, he'd found his new fools, he was The Ghost With The Most but before they came to terms with their situation he really didn't have anything to do. He could stoke out the house, hide himself away in the walls and watch the going ons of their dull boring lives and wait for the opportunity to strike and befriend them in an instant, weaselling his way into their afterlife and causing terror within the household but he usually held back a couple of days before he did that. Let them settle into their new surroundings, create a calm atmosphere before turning everything upside fucking down.

He liked that part especially.

Clearing his throat, he clicked his fingers and a cigarette appeared in his mouth instantly, another click and the cigarette had ignited itself. Oh the powers of a poltergeist, you had to love them. Taking several drags from the cigarette he decided that it would probably be best to hide out for a while, a change of scenery. Surely those dullards' digs were far cleaner than his?

A swig of the cheap rum that laid on the table next to his beaten armchair a comb of his filthy butter blonde hair and off he went with a small pfft sound.

He ended up down in the kitchen, flicking his cigarette to the left of him be began to check out the house. Everything was so…dull, the 1950's wallpaper, the laminate flooring and ancient carpets, he had to give the couple their due, they kept a tidy house but the place didn't look lived in, no dirt, no litter…the place was covered in dust but what else did he expect? When dying there were much more important things to worry about than polishing the units and hoovering the carpets.

There were several photographs on their mantelpiece along with that huge bugger of a mirror, it was them. They were younger, happy. Most of the photos were of their wedding day he presumed, there were no pictures of any kids though, maybe the husband didn't have strong swimmers in THAT department.

Yawning, Beetlejuice hovered through the house pausing here and there to pick objects up, usually to see if they were worth stealing, He was sure to keep himself formless, he didn't need the couple finding out about him being there, he needed their work. The afterlife was a shitty affair, paperwork and dust mostly. He'd learned from a very early death not to expect too much from the dead, when he left Juno, he was sure to find business elsewhere…he did but not without conning people.

While floating aimlessly up the stairs to reach the first floor of the house a shrill scream echoed throughout the house, it then morphed into a gasp. A gasp, Beetlejuice knew from experience meant some crummy wench had finally found her dream house. Yeah right, the place was a right bore house. It didn't have character, or a likeability factor. Turning round he watched as a red head arty fartsy type burst into the hall and grinned from ear to ear. He'd seen enough to know that he detested her already. She looked like a flake.

What he presumed to be her husband followed her in, his eyes wandering around the hall settling on the stairs and the many other rooms that adorned the house, he looked relatively normal, a bit nervous perhaps. Well, the guy hadn't seen anything yet; he was going to get one hell of a scare when those Maitland geeks needed him. He silently cackled at the thought.

He'd already seen enough to know that this would be an easy job; the couple were too fragile to dare stay in this house after he'd given them a good haunting. Turning, he made his way up the steps until a black figure caught the corner of his eye, they must have had a kid.

Beetlejuice stared at the darkly dressed figure of a young girl morbidly sitting on a sofa that was being brought in by the movers. He couldn't keep his jade eyes off of her as she slowly sat up from the sofa and took several pictures of the house. Her gaze finally resting on a spider that clung furiously to its web that was attached to the stairs. She was a couple of foot from him but he knew if he had fully formed into himself that she would have seen him. So, she was one of those. A believer. Interesting.

She murmured something and looked up directly into his eyes, just her darkened gaze sent shivers down his spine. This was a new development, he was sure he could have fun with this one, if he was lucky she might even be the key to him getting out of the Neitherworld for good. Yeah right, she didn't look like she was easy to manipulate, but being that young maybe her naivety would take over. He could put on a sob story and one hell of a show for her. A crooked smile took itself to rest upon his mouth as he watched her wander around the house.

She stalked the house like a predator, her camera stuck to her chest. Every now and then she'd stop, angle her head and take a few snaps of whatever interested her. He stopped next to her waiting for her to snap her next item but was surprised when she faced him and stared. She couldn't see anything so there was nothing to worry about, but that gaze had him doubting himself. Her hand gingerly hung in the air as she braced herself to pass it through the cold spot that had been following her. Beetlejuice knew that if she were a believer she'd be a bit wary about his aura following her. Like many poltergeists and ghosts, if he came in close contact with a breather they'd feel an almost chilly force against them. Sometimes his aura caused sickness, other times it caused headaches and panic attacks, but this girl just passed her hand through him without blinking an eye.

"Is…is someone there?"

He stayed silent and watched as she shook her head doubting how sane she was at that moment.

"Of course there isn't anyone there, you idiot." She murmured slowly chastising herself and continued her walk through the house. She reached the room her father had taken residence in, Beetlejuice was sure his name was Charles, he knew another Chuck back in the neitherworld. He smiled at her and waved for her to enter the room.

"Lydia, pumpkin. Where have you been?"

Lydia shrugged her black clothed shoulders and lifted her camera.

"I was just checking the place out, taking a few photographs. Is my room upstairs?"

Her dad nodded and at that moment Beetlejuice knew that this wouldn't be any regular haunting… Lydia was her name? He was sure that her name was Greek; he smiled and nodded to himself. This wasn't going to be no regular haunting.


	2. Chapter 2

**Break Away**

**Disclaimer:** See chapter one

**A/N:** I apologise for the wait. I don't really have that much of an excuse, all I can say is I thought that I had the basic plot of this story in my head until I wrote this chapter and it all went down the god damned toilet bowl. So from now on if I were you I'd expect anything, everything AND nothing.

On a related subject, this whole cartoon/movie war…well for the time being we only have one fandom at the moment and that's the cartoon one…so apologies to you out there who are offended for us movie lovers stealing your turf for a while and posting our stories here, we don't have anywhere else to go. I've also apologised to Witchy Wanda, I respect the gal and I love her work, I just had one of those days where everything wound me up and Witchy's little rant about the whole cartoon/movie thing was kinda the catalyst to a horrible day. No hard feelings though?

Anyway, I want to forget that and move on with the second chapter, reviews, criticisms and ideas are welcome. Flame all you want, my pretty reviews douse that fire!

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**Chapter Two:** _Boo!_

Lydia Deetz had always stood out from the crowd, never one to conform to whatever it was that was in fashion that month, or buying the number one best selling album of the week had left her an outsider to the world of sleepovers and birthday parties. She had grown up during a time of wealth, addiction and war and she had come to her own conclusions about her fellow human beings and the way life was lived.

Death had always fascinated her from an early age. Her mother, her only mother had passed away to the horror of cancer, she had battled for over a year but the disease had took what was left of her and left a shell of the beautiful young woman Lydia had grown up with. Her father had been utterly devastated and had put his all into his work and bringing up his young daughter and then Delia had come along.

An orange-headed flake with a voice that could shatter glass, her father had fallen for her instantly and soon after they had married. In her heart Lydia knew that Delia could never take the place of her mother, the woman was intolerable. She could sculpt yes but her figures were grotesque looking things that no one would consider art, her cooking was so atrocious that they now lived on take out, something that Lydia wasn't happy about but she respected the woman.

She hadn't settled well in school, her classmates had bullied her, laughed at her and made her the butt of most jokes. It had never gotten to Lydia, she had always been strong willed and the jesting was like water to a ducks back. But the news of them moving to another town almost desolate had been sweet music to Lydia's ears.

Lydia knew as she entered the house they were to now live in (as a family) that there was an almost chilly feel to the house. She had researched many books on haunting and poltergeists and she knew that something lurked within the walls. As she wandered the rooms slowly she had felt a cool draft of air behind her, almost following her and watching her. She had brushed it off knowing that if the house was haunted, the poltergeist or ghost would most probably have done something by now, moved a bit of furniture or flushed the toilet to make it's presence known.

But as she stopped and turned round, her small pale hand slicing the cool air, she knew she had just went through a cold spot, there WAS something there, following her for whatever reason. Interesting, maybe this house wasn't going to be as dull as she thought.

She had asked her father where her room was and had slowly crept up the wooden stairs to find its location. She was almost instantly drawn to it, the door slightly ajar. As she entered she scanned the room, it was spacey, there would be enough shelf room for her books and enough storage space for her sketches and her clothing. She hoped her father would build her a dark room; it would pass some of the time here.

The movers had angled her bed awkwardly into the far right corner of her room; she decided that she liked it there. The flowery wallpaper would have to go and the carpet would be getting changed. Lydia was glad that her room didn't have that big a window; it would be easy to cover up with black curtains or a veil of sorts.

Lifting her camera, she took several pictures of the room she would constantly be living in until she could find a job of sorts; college had been put on hiatus due to the move so she would need to find something to take her mind off the several months of waiting.

The Polaroid's followed one by one slowly floating to the floor where Lydia could quickly glance at them before taking more. Looking down she arched a well-shaped eyebrow as she noticed a white smudge on one of the photographs, sniffing her distaste on the wasted photograph, she took another one. Again, the white smudge covered most of the picture. Was there something on the lens? There couldn't be, she had cleaned it the day before. She knew it was dusty in here but there was nothing to cause the smudge.

One after another the pictures were covered in white smudges. What the hell? So there was something here then, and it had decided to take residence in HER room. Well, it would be nice to find out what she was dealing with.

Placing her camera on her bed, she turned round and tried to see if she could see something, a figure or an orb or whatever it was that ghosts showed up as. Nothing. Lydia wandered round her room; her hand slicing through the air from time to time there was a definite cold spot in the room.

"I know someone or something is in here. Why don't you show yourself?"

There was silence. _All the ghosts in the world, I get one of the ignorant ones. Great._

"Look, show yourself. I know you're here; you just ruined most of my photographs."

Again there was silence, Lydia huffed an aggravated sigh and turned her back. Maybe it was just her mind playing tricks on her, maybe –

"_Lydia."_

Quickly, Lydia's body swivelled round to find the owner of the voice. Nothing. What the hell was going on here? A soft wrinkling noise came from the direction of her bed, with a gasp and a jump, she turned to her bed. Wrinkling her forehead she slowly walked towards her camera, there was a scrappy worn brown piece of paper lying face down on her bed.

"How the hell did _that_ get there?"

Gingerly she lifted the piece of paper up to eye level, almost worried it might scorch her hand to the touch. The figure of a smiling beetle man holding a hammer greeted her eyes. "Nice." On the paper was her name written almost lovingly in bold copperplate along with the word BETELGUESE three times. What on earth was going on here?

"Does this belong to you?" Her words coming out shakier than before, she was a little nervous. This was her first ghost experience; she hoped this ghost wasn't seeking revenge or something. She had seen The Exorcist several times.

A soft yes drifted throughout her room, reaching her ears.

She looked at the piece of paper and shook her head, what did it mean? Betelguese? Wasn't that something to do with a constellation? Frowning she scratched her raven black hair and licked her suddenly dry lips. Was she to call the word out three times or what? What was she meant to do?

"I…don't know what to do."

_"Say it…_ " 

Taking a deep breath she held the paper between both her hands and closed her eyes. If she were to summon whomever it was that was communicating with her she didn't want to see their face straight away, what if the body was decomposing, would it smell? The questions kept coming and little by little Lydia was becoming more frightened of the situation.

"Will…will you hurt me?"

_"No.."_

Was she to believe a ghosts word? She didn't really know, the words escaped her mouth without her even knowing until the room that was to become hers turned extremely cold, her breath puffing out in quick bursts of cloudy condensation.

Hugging herself tightly, she tried to hold on as her room began to get colder and colder, she opened her eyes and closed them again quickly, dizziness was taking over. What was happening?

Cackling could be heard in the background as a whooshing noise invaded her ears, sinking to her knees, Lydia pleaded that today of all days wasn't her last on this earth. Her eyes to the floor she trembled as the voice that had whispered seductively in her ear not that long ago spoke again, his gruff smoky accent more pronounced now he had been called to the world of the living.

"Aw, babe. I knew you'd do it! C'mere and give me a kiss."

Lydia looked up, her head angled awkwardly and her body stiff with fear as her eyes met intense jade pupils leering at her. Opening her mouth to speak, scream, shout or screech whichever came first, she took a gasp of air and fainted. Her small body folding into a mass of black hair and frills.

"Aw hell. Ah well, time to get this show on the road!"

With a grin and a roll of his sleeves, Beetlejuice glanced at Lydia's still body before vanishing from her bedroom.

When Lydia would finally awake she would come to understand that not everything is, as it seems.


End file.
